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Knicks 2007 Summer Roster

* 6 Europeans! Well not really. Most are American born that are playing overseas. The exceptions are 30 year old center Bougaieff who is French Canadian and guard Ali Berdiel from the Puerto Rican National team. Even the most mundane player has an impressive youtube mix, but is this the best they can come up with for Bougaieff? Meanwhile Berdiel seems to have lost his starting job at Valpariso to Jarryd Loyd 2 games before the season ended. Berdiel’s biggest weakness is his propensity to turn the ball over.

* Does anyone think Nate Robinson has something to do with the inclusion of former Husky teammate Tre Simmons?

* If the starting 5 is based on who is under contract/draft position then it should be Collins, Nate, Balkman, Chandler, and Morris with Nichols as the 6th man. However the roster is thin on big men. There are 7 guards on the team, and that doesn’t include Nichols and Greene who are listed as G-F. Which means that the lineup might be Collins, Nate, Nichols, Balkman, and Morris with Chandler coming off the bench. It’s not a bad idea, since the Knicks are more likely to need Nichols this year than Chandler given their need for outside shooting and their depth at the forward spot.

* The Knicks have 6 guys on their summer roster that will make their NBA team next year. Although they had 5 last year, Frye exited early with an injury. Additionally Collins, Nate, and Balkman all have had substantial NBA time under their collective belts. So we should expect to see some wins this summer.

* Things I’ll be looking for:
1. Chandler – how does he fit in? When he & Balkman are on the court at the same time, who will take the bigger player? (Both players are listed as 6-8.) How is his jumper?

2. Nichols – Is he athletic enough to play at the next level? Can he score on his own? Is he a liability on defense?

3. Morris – Has he bulked up? Is he a turnover machine? Can he still block shots and rebound at this level? What methods does he use to score?

Just a note on what I think will make or break the season for the Knicks, and was hugely important last year.
I hope the team drills the hell out of these kids on the line.
I would venture to say the Knicks gave up at least 15 wins last season because of poor free throw shooting.
If we’re going to the blocks, if we want to pound the paint, we need to finish from the line.
You can look at our D, our turnovers, whatever…if we made our free throws at a decent rate, we would have been a playoff team.
And that means this off season they need to have been working that part of their game.

You’re saying that if the Knicks led the league in free-throw shooting then they’d be in the playoffs. Well, hypothetically speaking, if they matched Phoenix’s rate of 81%, that would have added an extra 10% to their FT%.

Considering that the Knicks took 30 FTs/game, that would have been an increase in 3pts/game. So wait, you’re right. They’d have averaged 100.5/ppg, and given up 100.3/ppg. On average, that’s a .500 record.

So all we really need to do this summer is teach Eddy Curry how to be Steve Nash.

On the Chandler/Balkman thing. As I recall, Chandler measures 6’7ish. Balkman on the other hand is actually 6’4. He has some ridiculous reach, but he’s clearly a SG/SF, whereas Chandler played like a SF/PF at DePaul. I’d expect him to take the bigger player when they’re on the floor together but who knows. Maybe the Knicks will want to see if he can guard wings.

“I would venture to say the Knicks gave up at least 15 wins last season because of poor free throw shooting.” -Frank O.

“You?re saying that if the Knicks led the league in free-throw shooting then they?d be in the playoffs.” -Michael Zannettis

He’s saying more than that. 15 more wins would make the record 48-34, winning the Atlantic and netting homecourt in the first round.

I’m not sure FT% would give 15 more wins myself, but for all the times I groaned watching the Knicks play D, I groaned more watching freethrows bounce out. Only Eddy Curry’s turnovers and offensive fouls made me groan more.

Seriously, get the guys in the gym and mandate 1000 freethrows a day (Lee can do it from 18 feet! Everyone should do it from 15).

Back in 1999, the Knicks had great FT shooters on the team. I think they led the league. But they never got to the damn line (last in the league.) Now they can get to the line a lot, only to look like idiots when they’re there.

Lee improved a lot. Balkman I think will improve too. Curry, well, supposedly was a decent freethrow shooter at one time. And Jeffries, well…

I think we need to limit expectations on free throws – you can’t just say that if we practiced a lot we’d be as good as Phoenix.

Assuming we shot the same number, if we somehow bumped our percentage to the league average, it work out to approximately one extra point per game.

I’ve seen several fairly accurate formulas for translating point differential into expected wins (doesn’t Dean Oliver have one?), but they all require a calculator that lets you punch in numbers up the 15h power or so…

…but in lieu of doing the actual calculation, I’d guess that improving our point differential by a point would probably mean an extra 3 or 4 wins.

My guess is Lee’s trade value is only going to be higher next year if he truly has a jumper in the works. If Z-Bo is working out by then we might be able to trade Lee for a star at the positions we need or for our PG of the future (Steph will have one year at that point). I guess I just don’t want to see us jump the gun, but if Isiah didn’t blink on the Randolph deal and give up anything too precious I don’t see why he would with Artest who is a far riskier player. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of non-Lee prospects to offer.

Last year the Knicks lost 14 games by five points or less, eight of those were lost by two points or less.
If you look at the losses, at least seven of them could have been different, I think, if the Knicks had just shot marginally better from the line those night.
But a seven game improvement would have put them at 40-42. Not as big a deal as I thought, but not insignificant.

It’s a total fantasy, stoked by Artest’s agent, to think that anyone is going to trade David Lee for his client. It’s a fantasy to think that Sacramento will get more than an expiring contract, or a Wilson Chandler-level draft pick.

Frank – I feel your pain, but our won-lost record was just about what you would expect given our point differential. Every team loses close games – we also won some, and got blown out a lot.

Close games are mainly a matter of luck – for example, Dallas was no better than San Antonio during the regular season – in fact their point differential was more than a point worse – but by random chance they won a large proportion of their close games. That gave them a misleadingly great record. (I mean, they were very good – as in 60-win good – but not great, 67-win great.

I was just checking out Portland’s summer league roster – don’t get jealous, but it’s sinking in that they actually have four pretty good young point guard prospects: Jarrett Jack, Sergio Rodriguez, Koppenen (their 1st round pick this year) and Taurean Grean. That’s not counting the roookie of the year, who supposedly can play the point, too.
On the other hand, Portland doesn’t really have a small forward… I would love to see us try and swing a deal for Rodriguez – he’s still a teenager and is already a decent player; I predict he’ll be a star plus he’s a lot of fun to watch.http://youtube.com/watch?v=my-bmN_M3gI

I’m sure the Blazers put a high value on him – but given their depth at PG, and the fact they can’t sign Rodriguez, Roy, ALdrige AND Oden to big extensions… I’d guess he’s available, for a price. Like Balkman. Or someone willing to pay Darius Miles. Or Joel Przybilla.
Jack would be a good fit for us, too, more immediate help though without the star potential.

Marco is definitely an exciting player who’s capable of putting up points in bunches. Unfortunately he has yet to do it consistently, and when you look at his Euroleague averages compared to other NBA hopefuls like Juan Carlos Navarro or Rudy Fernandez you get an idea of why teams let him slide to #18. Taking into consideration that he has less quickness and plays on a worse team than either Spanish guard, it seems likely that his 37 points was an abberation. We’ll have to see.

Off topic question; is there anyway to rate/measure the medical staff of teams? We still don’t know what happened to Lee and the way Jared Jefferies was treated… I just think the knick’s medical staff hasn’t proved themselves at all. Any thoughts?

Speaking of the Knicks’ medical staff, they just announced today that Mardy Collins had his knee scoped 6 weeks ago. Apparently, he won’t be playing in the summer league. Lee just started 5 on 5 full contact drills yesterday, so hopefully he’ll be 100% by the start of the season.

On another note, Keith Butler (7-1, C) from DePaul has been added to the summer league roster.

Man, I am really getting kinda pissed at ESPN for this Artest-for-Lee thing.

While I’m at it, how about Isola mentioning that the Kings would “insist on” getting Lee back for Artest?

I’m sure the Kings would ASK for Lee, and they probably don’t want anyone else on the Knicks, but to act like Artest is such a valuable property that you would “insist” on getting someone like David Lee is a total joke.

Isiah seemed pretty adamant about not trading Lee for Artest which should be commended. But what’s the deal with him saying he will not give up Balkman either? Let’s be serious, Balkman is a dime a dozen player a Gen-X, all athletisism and no defined skills. Artest, yes he has major baggage is one of the most skilled players at that position in the league. Isiah, stop with the redundancy. Jeffries, Balkman, Chandler and Nichols. Move one or both of those guys in a package for Artest.

Any thoughts about over-all improvement of East this year…Charlotte gets Richardson; Boston gets the shooter they (and we) needed desperately; Orlando…A lot of talent moved West to East.

The Knicks may be better than last year, but have others improved more? …Charlotte and Orlando seem much improved, while Boston may still be missing some pieces. Nets if healthy likely to win at least half their games…

bmj320 – Balkman is better than you give him credit for. He had I think the fourth highest PER (behind Roy, Millsap and Aldridge) of any rookie last year which is impressive considering he is not an offfensive player and PER is primarily an offensive stat.

On top of that he looks like he is going to be a great defender and the Knicks were 9.2 pts per 100 poss. better on defense with Balkman which is really an amazing number, plus he seems to have pretty solid fundamentals, handling the ball, passing and playing defense. His only weakness is his outside shot which should get better.

I really hope he starts for us this year.

Retropkid – I do not think that adding Richardson is going to help Charlotte that much, especially if they lose Wallace. I still do not project them as a playoff team. Also Boston while better with Allen should not be that much better because they lost West and have no one to man the point. You cannot win in the nba without solid pg play. Plus both he and Pierce seem a little fragile of late.

Orlando got better but I feel healthy we were better than them last year and Randolph is a better player than Lewis in my opinion, so we should improve more.

What happend to Charlotte they were very tight with their money for so long and now trade a top ten pick for an overpaid SG and then grossly overpay for an injury-prone SF all just one year away from having to give their PF a near max extension.

Both Richardson and Wallace are good but neither are worth 10 million a year.

coming into this offseason, they had zero guaranteed contracts for 2008-2009. so even with Okafor, Richardson, and Wallace and exercising the options on Felton, May and Morrison (ugh), they’ll still be well under the cap, although they will need some more bench guys.